Description
Nothing says it’s the Holidays (or a special occasion) like the smells wafting from the kitchen when there’s a Southern Cornbread Dressing baking in the oven! This recipe has been passed down in our family for generations. And in the South, like so many other places in the world, these are usually the best of the best because they have lasted and withstood the test of time. Welcome to our holiday table♡!
Ingredients
Scale
- one 3 to 4-pound whole chicken, boiled or baked, deboned and meat diced
- half of 1 recipe of Southern Skillet Cornbread (24 ounces) made the day before and dried out (665g)
- 1 cup plain bread crumbs (or 5 slices stale or toasted white bread crumbled) (140g)
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter (75g)
- 1 cup yellow onion, diced (150g)
- 1 scant cup diced celery, about 2 stalks (100g)
- 3 tablespoons leeks (white and light green part only) (optional) (45g)
- 1 teaspoon McCormick’s Poultry seasoning, or more to taste (2g)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons rubbed sage, or more to taste (2g)
- 2 1/2 teaspoons salt, or more or less to taste (sub Kosher salt) (16g)
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste (sub pre-ground black pepper) *see note below
- 2 large eggs, beaten (100g)
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced (to dot the top of dressing prior to baking) (30g)
- 3 to 4 3/4 cups homemade chicken stock, or storebought (710ml to 1.1L)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven and prep the casserole dish. Turn on the oven to 350°F/°176C and butter a 9×13 inch casserole dish and set aside.
- Combine the dry ingredients. Crumble the cornbread and add it to a large mixing bowl and add the bread crumbs (or crumbled stale bread), and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and mix everything to combine. Add the cooked diced chicken, combine, and set aside.
- Sauté the vegetables. In a skillet, melt 1/3 cup butter and add the diced onions, celery, and leeks (if using), 1 teaspoon salt, poultry seasoning, sage, and black pepper. Sauté the vegetables for 7 or 8 minutes, or until translucent and soft, and remove from heat.
- Make the dressing. Add the sautéed vegetables to the cornbread mixture and stir to combine being sure to get all of the butter from the skillet into the mixing bowl using a rubber spatula. Stir in about 3/4 of the amount of the chicken stock and combine well. Taste the mixture and check for consistency. Adjust the seasonings if needed, then add the eggs and stir to combine. If the mixture is still too dry, add in the last of the stock a little at a time until the mixture is “jiggly” and wet (like the consistency of a mud pie from when you were a kid).
- Finish and bake. Pour the dressing into the prepared casserole dish and smooth it out. Dot the top of the dressing with about 2 tablespoons (30g) of butter. Feel free to add fresh buttered sage leaves to the top for decoration if you want. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the top is golden brown and the middle is set, but is still soft to the touch, Enjoy!
Notes
- You will only need half of the amount of cornbread from one recipe of skillet cornbread, so you may scale down the skillet cornbread recipe by half or go ahead and make the full skillet cornbread recipe and eat half of it or freeze half to make another dressing at a later date.
- The amount of cooked diced and shredded chicken used in this recipe was 1 pound (464g), but adding up to 2 pounds is ok too for a meatier cornbread dressing.
- If you don’t have McCormick’s Poultry Seasoning, you can either make your own poultry spice blend using a mixture of the same dried spices (thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram, black pepper, and nutmeg) or just replace it with the same amount of sage and an extra pinch or two of thyme and/or rosemary.
- If you use a pepper mill instead of pre-ground black pepper, note that I used 45 turns on my pepper mill (set on the finest grind option). Feel free to add more or less as you prefer. *The original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of pre-ground black pepper.
- If using fresh sage instead of dried rubbed sage, use approximately 1 tablespoon of fresh sage for every 1 teaspoon of rubbed sage called for in the recipe.
- I used just shy of 5 cups of chicken stock, but you may use less if you use bread slices in place of fine bread crumbs. Just add a little at a time, until you have the desired consistency.
- If you don’t have plain bread crumbs, you may substitute 5 slices of inexpensive store-brand white sandwich bread that have been dried out for several days and/or toasted to achieve a stale bread consistency that crumbles easily. As a last resort, you may substitute Japanese Panko breadcrumbs.
- 1 scant cup of diced celery is equal to about 2 stalks. However, you may want to use any amount from as little as 1/4 cup to 1 or more cups. The same goes for the diced onion.
- If you use salted butter, reduce the overall amount of salt called for in the recipe.
- If you use kosher salt (like Diamond Crystal), you may need to increase the salt called for by 1/2 teaspoon, or more to taste.
- Replace the chicken with turkey. We typically use chicken because it’s tasty and easily prepared ahead of time. Depending on where you live, you can find packages of turkey breast, legs, and other parts to replace the chicken if you prefer.
- Substitute white onion for yellow onion if that’s what you have, our family has just always used yellow onions because it’s what the recipe calls for.
- If you’re using a slightly smaller casserole dish with deeper sides than the typical 9×13″ pan (like I did), you will need to bake the dressing for about 15 minutes longer, or until the middle is set and nicely golden brown.
- If you want a chunkier cornbread dressing, you can do any of the following: cut the vegetables into a larger dice, leave a few chunks of cornbread not finely crumbled, and use chunks of stale or toasted white bread instead of bread crumbs.a
- Make ahead and refrigerate or freeze the dressing and/or various components that make up the cornbread dressing. Up to a week or two, you may prepare the entire unbaked dressing, cover and freeze it. Unthaw it in the refrigerator overnight and remove from the fridge 30min to 45 minutes before baking. Or, if you prefer to do everything over the last few days leading up to the Holiday, use the below as a frame of reference and do what works best for you.
- 2 days before: Boil the chicken and chill it along with the cooking water. Store in the refrigerator.
- 1 day before: Make the cornbread, wrap and store it on the counter overnight.
- 1 day before: Debone the cold chicken (reserving the bones and skin for homemade broth), chop and shred the meat, and store in the fridge (or freeze it in an airtight container and thaw before adding to the cornbread dressing).
- 1 day before: Make the chicken stock using the reserved chicken cooking water, discarded bones, etc. along with onions, carrots, and celery, cool and store in the fridge overnight.
- On the day: The only thing left to do is sauté the butter, onions, celery, and herbs and add to the rest of the ingredients, stir, adjust the seasoning, and bake. Technically, you could sauté the veggies and herbs the day before as well.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Category: Side Dishes
- Method: Oven Baked
- Cuisine: Southern
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
